Why Don't Poems Rhyme Anymore?
The Queen's English Society may sound like the name of a Monty Python sketch, but I assure you it's very real. The group aims to protect "the beauty and precision of the English Language," and it's currently up in arms about supposed poems that--egad!--have no rhyme or meter.
The President of the QES, a man named Michael George Gibson (it may be a QES requirement to use three names), recently told the British newspaper The Guardian, "For centuries word-things, called poems, have been made according to primary and defining craft principles of, first, measure, and second, alliteration and rhyme. Word-things not made according to those principles are not poems."
I'm sorry...word-things?
Anyway, the QES isn't alone. Here in America, a movement called New Formalism has been pushing for a return to formal verse for decades. The poet and critic Dana Gioia in his "Notes on New Formalism" ticked off what he perceived to be the problems with contemporary free verse poetry:
The debasement of poetic language; the prolixity of the lyric; the bankruptcy of the confessional mode; the inability to establish a meaningful aesthetic for new poetic narrative and the denial of a musical texture in the contemporary poem. The revival of traditional forms will be seen then as only one response to this troubling situation.
I can hear the QES members tapping their canes in agreement.
Formalists have been tapping their canes for about a century now. Literary history records a sprinkling of early free verse poets like Walt Whitman and Christoper Smart, but the movement began in earnest in the early 1900s. Ezra Pound, who many consider to be the movement's figurehead, was a devoted student of poetry's traditions and a strong believer in the power of form, but he found the strict adherence to rhyme and meter limiting and artificial. He wrote many formal poems himself and thought poets should study the art's traditions before moving beyond them. He also felt they shouldn't move too far, writing "poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from the music."
Nonetheless, the free verse movement was something of a jailbreak. Freed from formal constraints, poets quickly pushed the limits of what could be called poetry. Here's a Gertrude Stein poem that could only be called Roast Potatoes:
Roast Potatoes
Roast potatoes for.
No, that's not an excerpt. Stein means to focus your attention on the transformation of the word "roast" into a verb.
Most contemporary poets take a mixed stance on free verse versus formalism. There's a general feeling that metrical, rhyming verse strikes the ear little too harshly these days, but poets haven't abandoned form altogether. Poets make use of subtler techniques like internal rhyme (rhyming within, rather than at the end, of lines) and slant rhymes (words that almost rhyme like "black" and "bleak"). Most poets still write with a music, but it's far more varied (and usually more subtle) than music typical of traditional verse.
I think most poets would also agree that you don't have to use rhyme and meter to write a great poem. Take the well-known word-thing This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams.
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
If that doesn't protect "the beauty and precision of the English Language," I don't know what does.
Still find yourself a fierce proponent of poetic purity? You're welcome to join the QES at the New Cavendish Club in London every other Thursday. And who doesn't enjoy a brisk debate about grammatical standards! Trust me, one might ensue. The QES's wikipedia entry--and I guarantee you they are all over their wikipedia entry--states "a commitment to standards should not preclude the possibility of grammatical change; nor does it mean, however, that change should be mindlessly celebrated for its own sake."
Mindless celebrating! Dare they forget how they got booted from Old Cavendish!
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English is simply such a terrible language in which to find decent rhymes.
What rhymes with that important word "heart"? art, apart, cart, fart, mart, part, tart.
That's it, even including a two-syllable word.
It is telling that the greatest operas in English are (Gilbert & Sullivan's) comedies!!
From Chaucer to Frost, I doubt that any language has a more significant collection of poetry which adheres to strict rules of rhyme and meter than English. I also doubt that Shakespeare or Shelley would have ever complained about the lack of words that rhyme.
No, it simply takes more effort to rhyme in the Teutonic languages.
For example, how many ways in French can you make the long 'a' sound?
Dozens! Want to rhyme all the time? French, Italian, Spanish, etc......
Give me those hard crashing consonants anyday.
Thank god Beowulf or Sir Gawain are in English, old or otherwise.
Dr. Suess was the last poetic genius !
That was a joke for those who couldnt figure that out.
I do also think Carlton Melleck III does a fair job of poetry when he tries.
My theory is that because people who can't, either teach or become critics. At least many seem to. So over the last couple decades of having talentless people teaching poetry and criticizing it the terms and definition of what a poem is has been contorted into something that anyone could be considered a poet.
Just a theory mind you..
Poetry and prose:
Arbitrary constructions,
Of fluid grammar.
Free-versity
Is spawned
At the university.
If you rhyme
a verse
You're forever cursed.
Lundberg writes: "Most poets still write with a music, but it's far more varied (and usually more subtle) than music typical of traditional verse."
Not true.
The problem is not free verse, and the solution is not formal verse. Over the centuries reams of formal poems have been written in English (and in other languages) that are dull and plodding and unredeemed by their strict adherence to various rules of meter, rhyme, and stanza.
Good formal verse appeals to us because it has something to say and because it employs its forms skillfully and often innovatively in ways that suit what it is saying and enacting. Good free verse likewise appeals to us because it has something to say and because the poets, skillfully and often innovatively, have found their way to free forms that suit what the poems are saying and enacting. Such free verse needn’t have meter or rhyme, but it must have line units that work (not only line _breaks_ that work). Lines depend on rhythmic trension and suitable relations to their content. Practiced readers who have developed an _ear_ can distinguish between free verse whose lines work and "poetry" that is merely broken prose (and often not very good prose). To _write_ free verse in lines that work also requires a developed ear, as well as a certain musical aptitude.
Lundberg's statement is false because most poetry published in the US in the past 20-30 years has been broken prose, not subtly musical verse.
I agree a 100%. Mr Lundberg seems to have some kind of a "screw the old elitists" attitude, which is offensive to this youngish you tube-addicted generation elitist :)
THE SHAMPOO Elizabeth Bishop
The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.
And since the heavens will attend
as long on us,
you've been, dear friend,
precipitate and pragmatical;
and look what happens. For Time is
nothing if not amenable.
The shooting stars in your black hair
in bright formation
are flocking where,
so straight, so soon?
-- Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin,
battered and shiny like the moon.
Does anyone else think Dana Gioia's critique works better as a poem?
"Notes on New Formalism"
by Dana Gioia.
The debasement
of poetic language;
the prolixity
of the lyric;
the bankruptcy
of the confessional mode;
the inability
to establish a meaningful aesthetic
for new poetic narrative
and the denial
of a musical texture
in the contemporary
poem.
The revival
of traditional forms
will be seen then
as only one response
to this troubling
situation.
If Damien Hirst's sliced up cow floating in formaldehyde can be called visual "art" then I would think a bit of non-rhyming in word arrangements might be called "poetry". The world of "poetry" has been so debased by cookie cutter MFA programs that it could hardly be more irrelevant in the 21st Century, by whatever measures or "rules" are used. If you would like to see a good example of the pathetic state of American "poetry" pick up a copy of "American Poet" which is the Journal of the Academy of American Poets. Can we talk about the emperor wearing no clothes!!!!!!!!!
Millay and Benet
oft had nothing to say
that didn't conclude in
singing word play
Tho for lack of a rhyme
they wasted no time
creating great poetry
anyway
For each could do either
rhyme or not bother
and we're lucky they wrote
whichever
than neither.
I HATE most rap music. AND there is great discipline, creativity and rhythm there to be enjoyed, if one can get beyond the fearful and often hopeless contexts that usually accompany the other schtuff.
No Poem
Thoughts..
On the spot.
Paper poisons Muse
Think... drink!
Make hearts sink.
Emotions love abuse.
Lifetime..
What the Hell's the use...
I agree. RAP lyrics are absolutely the front edge of modern poetry. The formal beauty, discipline and experimentation within a sustained structure -even in some of the very commercial releases with silly content - is incredible. And the range of different types of rhyming, rhythm, structure that carry the word play and message - like nothing else in the public eye. The poetry got me to "get beyond the fearful and often hopeless contexts that usually accompany the other schtuff" :) I love rap now.
The same silly discussions.
Does poetry matter? Why doesn't it rhyme any more?
This has been going on for centuries, same discussion.
Richard Wilbur vs. Allen Ginsberg
Did Shakespeare write free verse? Jeffers?
What books of poetry sell best?
Any takers? Frost, Lowell? Walcott, Heaney?
The current dilemma results from the "Everyone is a Poet!" attitude in America.
Tribes don't need rhyme. Scream your ethnicity at something called a "slam" and it is called
poetry.
Read the foul crap said about Richard Wilbur during the beatnik, Allen Ginsberg days
and then tell me which one will last. As a Poet, not as a political fad.
Wilbur will. Rhyme. Counting beats. Like Homer. Like the Beowulf poet. Like all poetry that will last.
The fads will stop and the real poets will continue to write. Because they have no choice.
The rest is dross.
"The fads will stop and the real poets will continue to write. Because they have no choice.
The rest is dross."
I love your position: ...poets will contnue to write because they have no choice.
Dross. I looked it up. It sounded like an ugly word. Indeed it is:
Main Entry: dross
Pronunciation: \ˈdräs, ˈdrȯs\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English dros, from Old English drōs dregs
Date: before 12th century
1 : the scum that forms on the surface of molten metal
2 : waste or foreign matter : impurity
3 : something that is base, trivial, or inferior
— drossy \ˈdrä-sē, ˈdrȯ-\ adjective
I am not so sure the rest is dross...it is not for me to trivialize others...u
But then again, I might just smile and be happy that I have an income -- of sorts. ;)
Happy poetry.
You might enjoy reading ROBERT FROST AND THE POLITICS OF POETRY. It's interesting and along this subject line.
Good morning, Snarky.
"Dross" refers to Ezra Pound.
I didn't have to look it up.
And read all of Frost before you tackle his "politics.
Thrilled you have an income.
Ginsberg will. Read Howl then, read the book of Obadiah in the Bible. Ginsberg's poetic style has been around a lot longer than the rhymy stuff. Besides, if you're going to rhyme, learn to sing and play an instrument.
Ginsberg may last (mainly because of the Howl trial, but whatever) but he is simply not at the level of Wilbur.
And for an interesting perspective on Ginsberg, read August Kleinzahler's essay on having lunch with him.
As he aged, Allen became less and less certain. Of anything.
No one person or group gets to decide what an art form "is." Poetry is an expression of what the poet is thinking and feeling, which can be very formal or completely free of formal constraints. Readers determine which poetry lives on and which doesn't but they don't control how poets express themselves. It's bad enough that Americans don't read much anymore, it would be even worse if they stopped writing too. I'm an English professor who prefers more formal poetry but I do like some free verse and I always appreciate any writers attempt to express him or her self.
The biggest problem is that people don't go through the learning discipline that formalist poetry is. They see a trail of broken, non-rhyming lines down a page and say, I can do that!
Poetry is like anything else, it needs training--formalist poetry is practicing your scales--the better you can do that, the better you can play.
Any freshman or sophomore seeing free verse and connecting their hormones or their "feelings" to the form thinks they are capable of writing "poetry." If they were disciplined in the word choices it takes to write a sonnet or a villanelle or any other of hundreds of viable classic forms, they would write better--in whatever form they chose--even prose.
Lines down a page do not poetry make.
...But without rhymes, what would happen to the man from Nantucket?
that very same man from nantucket
whose nose was so long he could lick it
once poked out the eye
of a crazy old man
so he said, screw it, i'm getting a nose job
Thanks for clearing that up!
He'd get stuck in a pail.
When challenged, I said
I'll show-em
And I sat down
To grind out a poem
For the lack of one word
and feeling absurd
I just finished the damn thing any old way
(and prayed I'd win the iPod)
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